Afghanistan’s poppy politics

THE farmers of Afghanistan have had a bumper harvest. But of opium, rather than grain or other more commendable crops. Some 4,600 tonnes of opium have been produced this year, more than twice the yield in 1998, according to estimates by a United Nations agency that deals with drug control. The poppy has bloomed in excellent weather and the farmers, encouraged by high prices for opium, have opened up new areas for cultivation. Afghanistan easily retains its doleful record as the world's largest opium producer. Only Myanmar comes anywhere near it.

The UN aims to persuade opium farmers to switch to orthodox crops, but to do so it needs the co-operation of governments. It says that almost all the opium is grown in areas that are under the control of the fiercely Islamic Taliban movement—not surprisingly, since the Taliban control nine-tenths of Afghanistan. It says the Afghan production is a cause for “great concern”, but declines to scold the Taliban. It needs to maintain a “degree of presence” in Afghanistan.

In fact, the Taliban seem to have made no effort to hide the extent of Afghanistan's opium production. Last year, Pino Arlacchi, the head of the UN's drug-control agency, persuaded the Taliban to destroy two tonnes of opium in return for UN help in building a factory that would provide several thousand jobs. Its value as a bargaining tool may explain the Taliban's delay in giving a firm promise to end opium-growing.

First, it says, it has to get its theologians to decide whether growing opium is in fact contrary to Islamic law. No doubt the theologians would consult their books more rapidly if the Taliban believed that opium control would be rewarded by general diplomatic recognition, at present granted by only three countries. Afghan opium eventually becomes the heroin traded on the streets of American and European cities. So a diplomatic incentive exists.

For less dramatic reasons, Afghanistan's opium production may fall next year. It is getting more difficult to export opium from Afghanistan to the West because the traditional routes through the countries of Central Asia have become better policed. Heroin, anyway, is giving way to cocaine as the narcotic of choice. And the high price of opium—$60 a kilo (2.2lb)—which encouraged farmers to grow more this year, was the result of a poor harvest in 1998. The price has now fallen to about $37 a kilo. The market is speaking.